Navigating App Development for Restaurants

What a wonder is an opportunity to resolve any issues in just several clicks: whether you want to get real feedback on new dishes which have recently hatched in the restaurant's menu or to replenish the storage with rare ingredients. What about engaging customers into the game, stimulating them to visit your cafe more often? Or the opportunity to book tables without disturbing staff by calling? Myriad tasks are waiting to be solved via restaurant app development. Whether you're an owner of a grocery shop or cafeteria or just a smart and foresight digital entrepreneur who knows how to contribute to the food-related industry, gain knowledge about app development for restaurant.

Which type of app to select for restaurant app development?

The goal of the app determines its functionality which can be honed to connect catering establishments with their vendors or customers. Starting restaurant app development, define who will be your addressee on the other side.

Restaurant-customer application

A platform that facilitates more advanced and flexible communication with food places with their customers. Since the product's targets tend to subdivide into several classes, they impact restaurant app development, determining the complexity and timeline of the process. Let's sort out which subcategories you can consider for your plans.

Online order and delivery apps

Always find fans as people quickly get used to the comfort and ease they bring to users' lives: customers don't need to go anywhere and waste time, in turn, to get served, as they can book their favorite food and dishes through an online ordering system. To see this type of app in action, check Uber Eats.

Review apps

Serve as specific platforms for collecting feedback from real amateurs of eating out. People who tried something in your place are invited to share their opinion about the cuisine and atmosphere in your food place, in this way inspiring others to visit the restaurant and help you to see the direction for improvement. Yelp is one of the samples of solutions that belong to the type.

Reservation apps

pursue the aim to help users get a table in the restaurant without the necessity to call them: a couple of clicks, and your place is reserved. As in Open Table, for example.

Loyalty program platforms

stimulate customers to visit restaurants more frequently due to various rewarding strategies. The user can gain points to his score which can be exchanged on various meals, or get an invitation to degustation or something like that.

Apart from the type of the app, you'll face the task to split between two ideas: create an app for a single food place or contribute to a multi-restaurant solution.

Building a single-restaurant app that works preferably for large corporations, like Mcdonald's, is a tricky and expensive enterprise.

As for multi-restaurant platforms, there's a space for creativity and growth baked up by connecting new participants.

How to sieve features through your criteria of relevance?

Based on the research of existing solutions, make a list of features precious in your case: the core ones can be used for an MVP creation. Put on temporarily the shoes of your customers and make an imagined journey through your future app. So, if you're planning to invite customers to join your delivery app, integration of payment systems, comfortable personal profile, and ordering functionality play key roles in restaurant app development. When it comes to loyalty program apps, you have to think meticulously about the mechanics of user engagement in order to make restaurant app development purposeful. Check the link above: you'll find the sets of essential features suited for various types.

How much will a restaurant app development cost?

Since you know precisely what you are going to build and who will be your service receivers, it's time to discuss restaurant app development with a customer-friendly software development team.

For example, Purrweb has estimated an abstract MVP for restaurant app development, and the guys discovered that the task will approximately take about 1276 hours of work. These numbers say you can deliver a working product in three or four months. The total cost depends on the hourly rates accepted in the company: in the case of Purrweb, the entire work which includes project management, UI/UX design, development, and quality assurance will cost less than $50,000.

Can you make this type of app profitable?

If you're puzzled by the idea of making money through restaurant app development, explore the experience other companies demonstrate. Let's put on the shelves how a company that organized restaurant app development can get revenue from this business.

1. Delivery fee

The price can be flat or vary depending on distance, order value, time of order, and even weather conditions. For example, FoodPanda charges 10% of the order and 2% is a service fee.

2. Advertising

Invite food places to promote their new dishes, auctions, degustation, and other ideas through the app. Restaurant owners are ready to pay an extra fee to see their offers top featured in the app as it entails more orders. For example, Uber Eats helps companies to be found by potential customers in case the enterprise owners are ready to pay for it.

3. Surcharges & commissions

Rush order? Peak hours? Long distance? Bad weather? The additional charges can be included in orders which are made under these conditions.

4. Fixed service plans

This scheme presumes to let restaurants place their menus and services on the app with fixed monthly payment plans.

5. Third-party advertising

If you're ready to deal with complementary businesses, make money from marketing fees that other companies are willing to pay in order to communicate with the app audience.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive, and research the internet, try to find some new algorithms and strategies, or invent your own mechanics. Anyway, restaurant app development promises to turn out to be an inspiring adventure if three factors coincide: a cute fresh idea, a reliable partner with deep IT expertise, and an appropriate moment to enter the market